Non-native English speaking families moving to Greenport could soon have an easier time enrolling their children in the school district.
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced a plan last week for improving communication between non-native English speaking families and eligible school districts by screening students for language proficiency and providing parents with translation services.
The Greenport School District qualified for the program since more than 12 percent of its student population speaks English as a second language. It is one of six Suffolk County school districts to qualify, a list that also includes the nearby Riverhead School District.
“[The goal is] to ensure that language barriers will not stand in the way of students obtaining a quality education, and that students and their families understand the services that are available to them,” Mr. Schneiderman said in a press release issued last Thursday.
Qualifying districts must develop and implement new policies and procedures to begin the second contact is made with the district and school officials and employees will receive training on the new policies.
“Ensuring that students have access to all educational resources is paramount to their academic success and our success as a region,” County Executive Steve Bellone said in the release.
In September, the Riverhead Central School District reported an influx of non-native English speaking students entering the district, and noted difficulty in finding the necessary personnel to accommodate the growing population.
Riverhead Superintendent Nancy Carney told the News-Review there was an additional 91 ESL students enrolled in Riverhead schools — with about 60 of them registering in just the last two weeks before school started, bringing the total number of ESL students from 781 in June 2014 to 875 by September.
Greenport schools did not see a similar influx, Greenport Superintendent David Gamberg said in September.
The influx of ESL students is believed to include a number of “border children,” who reportedly fled their homelands in Central America to be reunited with families in the United States, according to the attorney general’s office. About 1,200 of those children came to Suffolk County, federal statistics show.